Episode list

So one day you're Ukrainian, the next you're Russian. That's the extraordinary prospect for the people of Crimea, a neglected pocket of a nation left battered and all but broke by a corrupt President and his political cronies. In the blink of an eye, protesters rose up against a government that reneged on a plan to embrace Europe. The government brutally turned on its own. As pitched battles were fought in the capital Kiev, the Russian-friendly leadership fled their luxury villas and palaces in a mass escape to foreign exile.

In Chile the brutal, murderous past under dictator general Augusto Pinochet is never far away. Families of those who perished or simply disappeared under his rule are looking for clues to what happened to their loved ones and they're yearning for justice.

On Australia Day 2009, Australian property executive Marcus Lee was thrown into a seething, violent Dubai jail and nearly died. Nine months later he emerged accused of a crime he says he never committed. Despite his confidence of innocence and the wholesale lack of compelling evidence against him it took the better part of five years, trapped in Dubai, to shake the charge and the threat of a much longer prison stretch and get back to Australia.

On Australia Day 2009, Australian property executive Marcus Lee was thrown into a seething, violent Dubai jail and nearly died. Nine months later he emerged accused of a crime he says he never committed.

In Launceston, Tasmania, Kate and Paul Torney yearn for another child. The arrival for their son Ptolemy was a dramatic and damaging event that almost killed Kate and certainly ended her natural capacity to bear another child.

How did an 89-year old grandmother turn a chance encounter into a revolution? In a small country town in Canada in 2004, ex-pat Australian Norma Geggie had a glimmer of an idea - a plan to support grandmothers in South Africa who had lost their children to AIDS and struggled to support their grandchildren. The idea took off, and soon grew to involve thousands of grannies combining efforts to help their bereft counterparts living in poverty in townships across South Africa. An uplifting tale of connection between people living half a world apart.

"Should we close Gitmo? Absolutely. It's a blight on our history and I say this as a man who helped create it." So says retired General Michael Lehnert, who 12 years ago was given orders to build cells at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which the United States has "leased" from Cuba for more than 100 years.

As Australian, British and U.S forces withdraw the majority of their troops from Afghanistan, they leave behind a country that remains profoundly threatened by the Taliban. 12 years of war has dented this resolute band of jihadists but it hasn't broken them, nor their determination to turn as much of this nation as possible over to its uncompromising brand of Islam and Sharia.

In 2014 Eric Campbell visited a place few experience, the Spratly Islands, in the middle of the oil-rich South China Sea. Many of the so called 'islets' have been built up by competing nations to bolster claims of ownership.

Polio should be history. When it swept the world last century it crippled and killed hundreds of thousands before the world fought back. An immunisation program saw the virus retreat from the developed world - then a concerted campaign in the '80's all but wiped it out in the developing world. So why has Pakistan become a polio hotspot with cases on the rise? And why when vaccinators set out to administer preventative drops to children are they risking their own lives? In the cities and out in the rural reaches of this complicated country, suspicion and hostility against the polio eradication program is being fanned by religious extremists, including the Taliban.

They had front row seats to one of the most shocking, violent and oppressive dramas to unfold in modern China. The Tiananmen Square massacre. They were the men and women stationed at Australia's embassy in Beijing. Over the space of weeks then days, they saw the very best and the very worst of human behaviour. Now, 25 years on and for the first time, Australia's eye-witnesses to that dark chapter tell how they hid from gunfire, harboured and helped key targets and focussed wider attention on the outrage by smuggling defining image out and into the global spotlight. A Foreign Correspondent exclusive.

The people who are building and managing it insist it's a temporary, emergency shelter. The people living in it are turning it into an incredible array of proud neighbourhoods, busy commercial and retail centres, education precincts and, if love blooms and a wedding's set, then one of the world's most unlikely function centres as well. It's called Zaatari. But to call it a camp would be to deny the incredible vibrancy and complexity of this community in the desert. Of course everyone wants to go home to Syria. But as they pray for their war-ravaged nation to settle and become safe again, this extraordinary city in the sand has become their home away from home.

There's a new gold rush in America's west, where decades of marijuana prohibition are coming to an end and Wall Street is moving in. Hundreds of cannabis businesses are aiming to make it an industry to rival beer. With predictions sales and profits will grow by 64 per cent in the next year, thousands of new businesses are entering the market. But there is a growing opposition of voices warning that a new Big Tobacco is being created. One of them is Patrick Kennedy, former Congressman and son of Ted, nephew of JFK, a man who has had his own struggle with addictions. But Cannabis Inc. is a slick operation wooing politicians with the prospect of a billion dollar industry they can tax.

International reporting can sometimes be about being in the right place at the wrong time. A time when a fascinating foreign location can be a very dangerous place - life and death can be determined by centimetres and freedom can be snatched arbitrarily. Peter Greste knows this all too well. In Somalia, a colleague standing right beside Greste was shot and killed. Later in Egypt, Greste and two colleagues from news operation Al Jazeera found themselves targeted by forces trying to reassert their authority in the restless nation. They had declared one side of the story in Egypt not just just out of bounds but a crime and despite an absence of evidence, accused the Al Jazeera trio of spreading false news and helping terrorists. With access to family and key players in the saga, this is a special Foreign Correspondent report.

What happens when a vacuum-sealed, strictly-controlled nation loosens up, opens its doors and ushers in aggressive international businesses, hungry global developers and hoards of curious tourists? Can Myanmar's sensitive culture, fragile and beautiful heritage and infant democracy cope with this strange, invasive and transformative surge? It's too early to tell. But it turns out some enterprising locals aren't just standing by waiting for change. They're taking their opportunities now and they include a power-pop princess with world charts in her sights and a former US based Google exec who's returned home to build a business. Myanmar's even letting in nosey reporters so we sent our own Sally Sara to witness this historic collision of past, present and future.

Hopeful, excited prospective parents, happy, helpful surrogates and a baby brokerage offering an affordable plan. What could go wrong? In Cancun, Mexico and Los Angeles, California Foreign Correspondent blows the lid on an unscrupulous operator preying on the dreams and life savings of clients, abandoning surrogates and failing to deliver despite claiming hundreds of happy customers. North America Correspondent Jane Cowan has this latest chapter of our investigation into the booming international surrogacy business.

The locals call them 'bombies' - small bombs only about the size of a tennis ball. But, these tiny munitions have left a deadly legacy in Laos. The United States dropped a staggering 260-million bombies on Laos during the Vietnam War - the equivalent of a bombing mission every eight minutes for nine years. Many didn't explode on impact, leaving Laos contaminated with millions of unexploded ordnance. Forty years after the end of the war, the 'bombies' are still taking lives and limbs - many of the victims are children. Now, a brave band of women is going where others fear to tread, to find and destroy the explosives that litter their precious land.

Syria's civil war has become a magnet for jihadis from all over the world. And while nations like Australia wrestle with the threat of those dangerously radicalised warriors returning home, Foreign Correspondent presents an extraordinarily intimate and confronting journey as a violent, criminal king-pin leaves his drug-running turf behind to head to Syria's frontlines to fight a war he doesn't really comprehend. This is a searing insight into the many different motivations inspiring foot-soldiers to Syria's conflict and beyond, into the fold of the super-violent radicals of ISIS, wreaking terror in Iraq. Michael Brissenden narrates a Guardian Films production.

In Glasgow, the Commonwealth Games may be the biggest show in town right now but Scots have a much bigger play underway that will define their economic and political future. Very soon they'll be asked if they want to say goodbye to England and go it alone. The independence movement is gathering support but will it be enough to carry Scotland out of the United Kingdom? And does Scotland have the wherewithall to survive let alone prosper on its own? Europe correspondent, Scottish-born Barbara Miller heads home to test the water.

On a remote but vitally important frontier, a ground-breaking experiment is underway aimed at erasing the gender divide in the armed forces, eliminating intimidation and abuse and encouraging more and more women into service. On Norway's border with Russia - more tense now NATO and Russia are sharply at odds over Ukraine - men and women are training together, patrolling together and sleeping together in a counter-intuitive effort to build a unisex force in which women are just as likely to command men in the barracks and on the battleground. Many nations are taking a close interest in this radical program, including Australia.

As doctors and healthcare workers continue the challenge of treating preventable diseases in East Timor, Foreign Correspondent reporter Sophie McNeill spends time in Dili's Bairo Pite Clinic, with an inspiring medical team providing free health care services to thousands. Diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis, heart failure, severe malnutrition, and infant diarrhoea are common and widespread - and over 50% of children under the age of five are said to be underweight and stunted for their age. Meanwhile, deaths in childbirth are among the highest in the whole of Asia. Meet team leader Dr. Dan, who came from the U.S, set up the clinic, and decided to stay.

Ever since it surrendered to the allies at the conclusion of WW2 Japan's military effort has been homebound. The Japanese Self Defence Force has been precisely that - remaining vigilant to outside threats but constitutionally restrained from striking the first blow. Now, with an assertive China throwing its weight around in North Asia, there's a developing inclination among Japan's leadership to take its tactical lead from another playbook: that the best form of defence is attack. Many in Japan - young and old - worry that's leading their nation down a path to war.

The deadly disease, Ebola, has swept across West Africa and is now threatening communities on the east coast as well. It's the deadliest outbreak in history and doctors have no drugs or vaccines to stop it. This special Foreign Correspondent report, from ground zero of the ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, shows a country with some of the worst rates of infections and deaths. Our team, which was the last camera crew into the hardest hit areas before a Government lockdown was introduced, has been at the frontline for one of the worst weeks in the Ebola crisis. The story reveals how health workers, some of whom are Australians, are battling the outbreak, which includes finding homes for newly orphaned children whose whole families have died from the disease.

The world is eating a once mighty, abundant wild fish into oblivion. And with million dollar price tags on exemplary specimens it's no wonder international fishing fleets are scouring the Pacific in search of Bluefin tuna and their relatives the Yellowfin and Bigeye. Many of those vessels will fish where they're not supposed to and take catches they're not entitled to. That's made the tiny island nation of Palau hopping mad. But what can it do about one of the world's more pressing environmental and sustainability questions? Can one of the world's littlest countries help save the beleaguered tuna of the Pacific?

It's a place out of bounds for many of those who know it as home. Tibet. Seized by the Chinese and now tightly controlled, Tibet is out of reach for Tibetan refugees around the world who are left with distant memories of their homeland. They can only dream of its return to them and their return to it. Australian musician Tenzin Choegyal has the very vaguest recollections of Tibet. He was spirited out by his mother and father as a young boy. But he feels it's defined his spirit and now, he's determined to see it once again. To do that he has to travel though the hitherto hidden kingdom of Upper Mustang, and along a time-honoured trail that's now in competition with what passes for the 21st century up here. A major, transformative road rolling up to the Tibetan border. Will Tenzin fulfil his dream?

Off an isolated country laneway on a remote area of Irish bog, sophisticated forensic technology is being rolled out in an attempt to crack a now notorious cold case. 21st century science is being used to search for the remains of Belfast man Brendan Megraw who went missing 36 years ago without a trace. Accused by the IRA of being an informer, he was murdered, his body hidden, and the story of what happened suppressed for more than 30 years. It's now known he is one of a group of victims referred to as The Disappeared - there were 16 of them all together, and to date only 9 have been recovered. Foreign Correspondent follows the search for Brendan Megraw and the quest for answers. Where are the bodies, and just what happened all those years ago and how has Gerry Adams one of Ireland best known political identities become embroiled in the affair?

Soweto. It was once a byword for oppression, suffering and squalor as South Africa's Apartheid policy sought to segregate and confine blacks to their own precincts. But Soweto has always had an unassailable spirit. It was home to Nelson Mandela before he was despatched to Robben Island prison for 27 years. It was home to the apartheid resistance - a force that ultimately couldn't be denied. Now, in a distinctly different South Africa, Soweto has transformed dramatically. Ritzy shopping malls, flashy cars rolling down the main street - there's money around. A new generation in Soweto enjoys a very different life and thanks to a remarkable woman and an amazing music program, it's possible some very gifted children will become world class musicians.

In 2014, Stephen McDonell reported on China's crackdown on a resident Muslim community in the remote northwest of the country in what it claims is its own war on terror.

What can you do when a dysfunctional, often corrupt and malevolent justice system sees you charged with a crime you claim you never committed, denies you adequate legal support then puts you inside a violent, Dickensian prison for the rest of your life? In Kenya, you can either accept your fate or fight. In this remarkable, access-all-areas journey through some of the country's toughest jails, we examine an unorthodox program enabling convicts to school themselves in criminal law and become advocates aiming to set themselves and other inmates free. And don't think they're being set up to fail. They've put together a pretty imposing record, winning 3,500 cases in the past decade.

For two days, an inflatable dinghy packed full of young African men floats in the middle of the Mediterranean, its occupants unsure if they will live or die. Suddenly, the San Giusto - an Italian naval ship - looms into view, plucks the jubilant men from their sagging rubber boat and they join the 140,000 people rescued at sea by Italy, so far this year. When the San Giusto has collected its capacity of human cargo, they're taken to a southern Italian port, subjected to health tests and passed through a processing centre and, for some, on through the gates to town and onto to a new life in Europe. Italy's Operation Mare Nostrum is starkly different to Australia's Operation Sovereign Borders and it has also has its fair share of critics. In an Australian television first, Foreign Correspondent takes you aboard this high-risk, politically controversial exercise conducted, as you'd expect, with plenty of Italian passion and dedication.